Set in pre-colonial Aotearoa this gorgeous film tells the story of a young Māori woman who risks her life to travel to another tribe. There she must give herself to the Chief in order to stop her bloodline from dying out altogether. Created in 72 hours for $800 as part of the second iteration of the Native Slam at the Maoriland Film Festival.

Amie Batalibasi (Solomon Islander) is a writer, director and producer based in Melbourne. She is the 2017 recipient of the Sundance Institute’s Merata Mita Fellowship to develop the feature version of her short Blackbird, which screened at last year’s imagineNATIVE.

Renae Maihi (Te Arawa) is an acclaimed writer and director with a long history at imagineNATIVE. She is one of the directors and writers of this year’s Opening Night film, Waru.

Kelton Stepanowich (Sayisi Dene) is from Fort Chipewyan and is best known for writing, directing, and producing the short film Gods Acre which premiered at TIFF and won Best Short at imagineNATIVE 2016.